


The Unfairness of Being

by SmudgedPrints



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmudgedPrints/pseuds/SmudgedPrints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier is angry at the world, and those around him. Really, though, can you blame him? Post-movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unfairness of Being

Charles Xavier had, on more than one occasion, been accused of being rather more optimistic than the world seemed to warrant. His university friends and colleagues had wondered how he could be so positive when the Americans and the Russians were on the verge of starting Armageddon, and his sister, because she had more information than them, wondered how he could stay so upbeat when she knew for a fact he brushed against minds that were dark, corrupt, and less than savoury.

He'd told her then, as he'd told Erik Lensherr years later, that he treasured the gems of Humanity when he came across him. That the ugly sensation of the mind of a man who beat his wife was diminished when he felt the earnest compassion and selfless drive of a nurse finishing her seventh nightshift in a row. It reminded him that there was good in the world, and he revelled in the knowledge, held it close to his breast and treasured it.

He'd had a lot of practice in being visibly upbeat, and his recent discovery of the fact that there were more mutants in the world than he could count had only enhanced that, at least for a little while. So often he met those who put on their own facades of cheerfulness, whilst he could feel their misery beneath the surface, and if he hadn't been practiced at maintaining his composure, he would weep for them. Perhaps that was why it was so easy to maintain an upbeat facade, and why it took him so long to realise to realise that it was exactly that.

He was angry. Desperately so. He'd had his moments of anger in the past, but they were always over quickly, a brightly burning flash that expired quickly. Like when Raven had accidentally destroyed his homework, or when Michael Hawthorne had wrecked a weeks worth of experiments at the lab. This was an oily, congealed rage that clung to him, refusing to shift, and welled up at unexpected moments, leaving him to seethe inside his own head, blaming everyone and anything for his circumstances.

He blamed Raven for leaving him. He blamed Erik for betraying his trust. He blamed Moira for being stupid enough to shoot a man who she knew could turn aside bullets. He blamed Hank for not making the suits as bulletproof as advertised. He blamed his mutant genes for letting him feel the pity from those who looked at him. He blamed Sean and Alex for relying on him, and not leaving him in peace to wallow in self-pity. He blamed the government for turning on them.

Oddly, though, he never blamed Erik for the moment of the injury. He'd been careless, overconfident, but Charles had known Erik well enough to know that it had genuinely been an accident. At least, he hoped so. Erik's face had twisted as he'd looked down at Charles, but no matter how much he scrabbled at the void in front of him, he hadn't been able to judge the man's feelings. He'd never realised how much he'd relied on his telepathy to read a person's intent until he was confronted with its lack, and he was forced to admit that he'd never had to learn the nuances of expression beyond the broad strokes. Had Erik's despair been genuine, or had it merely been a very good act?

The anger, and the desire to push the blame away passed, as it always did, and Charles would inevitably be left sitting there, alone in his bedroom or study, rubbing a hand absent-minded over his leg, feeling the cloth and the flesh, but like it belong to someone else, with no return of sensation. He would stop, and force himself to do something productive.

He fooled himself into thinking that he was coming to terms with his condition, at least up to the day where Alex and Sean came to blows over, of all things, a salt shaker, and had to be separated by Hank. As they both expressed their bewilderment as to how things had gotten so heated, so fast, Charles had realised with vague dismay what had been happening, and he'd assumed that jovial mask and suggested that they go and spent some time off the estate. Take in a movie, or just have fun in a park somewhere.

The stress of recent events, he said, sagely, and though Sean and Alex seemed enthusiastic, and said nothing further on the subject, Hank wasn't fooled, and after the pair of them left, sought Charles out in his study and fidgeted, looking uncomfortable and as if he was trying to find the right words.

"I know you're angry," he said, absently smoothing out a ruffle of fur at his wrist. "I _do_ know."

 _At least you can still take a piss standing up,_ Charles wanted to yell, in a moment of uncharacteristic crudity. But that thought, at least, he kept to himself, and simply said, "Yes, I suppose you do," in a tone of such blandness that Hank fidgeted some more before stating his intention to work of some maintenance to the satellite dishes. He needed to upgrade the power lines before he could use them in Cerebro, version two, and Charles was grateful when he felt Hank pass beyond the point where his mind could be easily touched. It would be a miniscule effort to reach out and tap his mind, but it was no longer a faint pressure on his consciousness by virtue of proximity.

It let him examine the tattered remnants of his self-control with dismay without anyone interrupting.

As a child, when he'd struggled to block out those early, overwhelming and maddening influx of thoughts, he'd done the simplest thing he could think of and put a wall in the way. That had almost been as bad as the problems it had solved. The wall, when he'd finally figured out how to put it in place, completely blocked off any sort input. It had been just as disturbing as the minds that had chattered incessantly at him. He'd later determined that, as a telepath, constant awareness was a normal state of being, and silencing the voices was alien-

 _Human_ , the memory of Erik reminded him.

-and he'd had to find an alternative. He'd wound up visualising a sort of spider web, a net, to protect his mind. It was a malleable thing, able to bend and shift and bow but never break. Strands of will woven together with iron determination could be thinned or thickened as he desired, closing or widening the gaps between them. He could thin the net enough to peer through into another's mind without sacrificing the net itself, or he could tighten it and close off his mind to all but the faint murmur of surface thoughts that slipped through.

He examined that net, those shields that he'd kept up purely subconsciously ever since he'd been a child eavesdropping on his mother's thoughts on how the maid hadn't polished the silverware properly, and realised that the oily anger had poisoned and corroded the net, and it was damaged, torn, and he'd been so busy pushing his own anger outward to realise that the reason he couldn't hear other thoughts as strongly was that his own were so powerful.

It was hard to fix. He couldn't just repair the damage with patches of resolution or a dab of adamant pride. He had to weave it anew from skeins of emotion, so took down that net, those subconscious guards, and it was as if every sound and smell and sight was abruptly enhanced, turned up to full. Normally, the simple thoughts of animals never made it though his safeguards, but now he could feel them. Dozens, hundreds of simple little minds whose thoughts were nothing more complicated than 'food' or 'fly' or 'sleep' were all around him. That simplicity was soothing in a way, and yet more irritating than anything else in the world.

 _Can't I have some peace?_ he raged, internally. _Can't you all just shut up and leave me alone?!_

 _Food,_ the little minds said. _Fly. Run. Sleep._

Charles had wondered, after he'd sent Moira away, and the fact that Raven was never coming back sank in, and the knowledge the bright, brilliant mind of a man whose company and intellect were so thoroughly compatible with his own hid from him, never to be felt again, settled, if drinking would be a good idea. He'd considered the idea thoroughly, and then rejected it. He'd never suffered the puritanical delusion that alcohol was a sin or a vice, and his ability to down a yard of ale was lengendary in certain Oxford circles, but drinking himself to oblivion seemed somehow cowardly, somehow-

 _Weak,_ the memory of Erik told him, _And we are not weak men, Charles._

-inconceivable.

The net, as it regrew, Charles knitting it together with the ease of practice, wasn't the bright barrier of principle that it had been. A length of cynicism intertwined with a bobbled twist of wounded pride. The anger glued the net together, and Charles had not the energy to extract it. Maybe he would find the strength to turn away from the anger for strength, but that day wasn't today. He'd restored some semblance of control to his abilities, and, hopefully, there would be no further fights thanks to his leaking emotions.

He drew a deep breath, and tried to ignore how his hands shook as he reached for the papers on his desk. It was a print out from the now-destroyed Cerebro, the first generated, and the typed lines of coordinates were augmented with scribbled notes in Erik's handwriting, as he'd added notations that Charles had murmured as he found each mind.

 _Female, Asian,_ one note said, _Controls plants._

Another read, _Male. White. Can shatter rock._

At the bottom of the page was a doodle, a double, twisted helix. Erik had spent the night before their trial run with Cerebro listening with a faint, amused, smile on his face, as Charles had described the discovery of DNA, and talked about the scientific advances of the last decade, of actual pictures being taken of this fundamental aspect of existence, that which gave them their abilities. He'd told Erik of running into Rosalind Franklin at a lecture in London prior to her death, and how she'd sparked in him a desire to research that strange field of genetics. A lot of people tended to humour Charles when he started going off on one of his tangents, but Erik's good humour had been genuine. He'd thought that Charles' whole body became more animate when discussing his favourite topics, but Charles was far too polite to let on that he knew.

He put the papers aside, and reached instead for the small pile of post.

There was a letter from one of his fellows at Oxford, expressing regret at his decision to leave the University, and wondering if Charles would care to come back and lecture at some point. Charles scrunched up that letter and threw it in a nearby bin, not wanting to consider the logistics of getting man who couldn't walk on and off an aeroplane. It would happen, but he'd have to be carried around, helped and managed. The crew would be pitying, and the other passengers would be shocked and appalled. Much easier simply not to bother.

The rest was fairly mundane. Bills, letters from the accountants regarding the release of funds to make changes to the mansion, and a single postcard.

The postcard caught his attention. It was plain white, with the mansion's address on one side, and on the other...

 _Knight to Queen's Bishop 3,_ it said, followed by a post-office box in New York City.

Charles' fingers tightened on the card, so much so that it bent, putting a permanent crease in the left bottom corner. He stopped just short of tearing it, and managed to get through the initial urge to burn the damned thing and not think any more about it. He couldn't deceive himself about who it was from, not when he'd been staring at an example of the man's handwriting only moments earlier.

Reluctantly, he raised his eyes to where a chessboard sat on a side table, the match-in-progress untouched. He'd been ignoring it for weeks, as if by pretending it wasn't there, that would make it so. He'd not been able to bring himself to putting the pieces away. Had Erik known that, or was it simple hope that drove him to write?

It wasn't an olive branch, or at least, not an overt one. Charles found himself wishing that Erik had written properly, had sent him a letter, perhaps begging him to see reason, to join Erik's side, to understand why he'd done what he had.

During the moments where the anger held sway, Charles wondered if he might not let himself be persuaded. A few months ago, he'd had a sister, a job, colleagues, friends, research, nights out and now he had an empty house, a government that wanted him dead, three frightened people who liked to pretend they weren't looking to him for guidance, and a chair with wheels on. What was so wonderful about this world that he'd forsaken Raven and Erik for it?

He should have tried harder with her. With both of them. All he had to hope for now was that she was happy with him. That they were happy. Together.

He tossed the postcard down angrily on his desk. It stood out sullenly from the blotter, mocking him with its simplicity.

He had no doubt that the box wouldn't lead him back to Erik, should he try to pursue it. Erik had far too much practice at moving unnoticed through the world while he hunted, and with his allies including a man who could move instantly from one place to another, he could have specified an address in the Himalayas and still be able to pick up his letters.

Charles stared at the postcard for a long, drawn out moment, then pushed his chair away from the desk (awkwardly; he still hadn't quite developed the proper strength to move himself about with ease, though Hank kept making noises about installing some sort of motorised component) and over to the chessboard, still frozen in the memory of a night from a lifetime ago, when Charles had yawned so widely his jaw had clicked, and Erik laughed and said they should perhaps leave the game until they'd gotten back from Cuba-

 _Sentimentalism,_ the memory of Erik said. _Didn't think you were the type._

-and he could finished teaching Charles exactly who was the better player.

He wondered if Erik even realised the state that Charles had been left in, after his departure.

Charles picked up the specified piece, running his thumb over the nose of the Knight, feeling the ridges of the horse's face, and determinedly set it into the new position before he could change his mind. Then he regarded the altered board, and picked up his bishop, moving it to take a pawn.

He fidgeted, tossing the pawn over and over in his hands. It was a terribly bad idea to do this. Better to make a clean break, to grieve and get over that part of his life. He had enough to be angry about loosing, rather than continually reopening the wound of Erik's absence.

But then, it wasn't like he had a been making a habit of making sound decisions lately. Besides, he was allowed to be selfish. It was his _right_.

He rolled back to his desk, and took out a piece of letter-writing paper, uncapping a pen and scrawling, almost too quickly for the ink to properly leave the pen, the next move in the match, then dried the ink, folded the paper and slipped it into an envelope. He wrote the address much more cautiously, then tossed the envelope aside. It would get posted with the rest of the outgoing mail later on.

The anger was still there, bubbling beneath the surface, a morass of seething rage just waiting to be expressed. But somehow it felt more distant, less threatening. It wasn't much, but it was something. He smoothed out the now-creased white postcard, then put it into his desk drawer. Maybe later, much later, he'd add hope to the net of emotions that shored up his thoughts. But not today.

Not yet.


End file.
